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planning problems: Murcutt + Seidler to the rescue?
I noticed in last weekend's Australian that
a) next year is the international year of the built environment.
b) there is a "Murcutt-Seidler" campaign to fix up the planning system.
I'm not quite sure what the details of this campaign are, other than talking to journos at the Australian, but I'd have to wish it well - where do I sign up. The RAIA are also wishing it well I see.
From the article:
"The closer one looks at [architects'] standing in Australian society the more constrained and encumbered it seems to have become: councils, fixated on simplistic notions of aesthetic harmony, rarely shy of issuing decrees on the period styles - Georgian, Federation, Victorian - and materials to which new domestic work must conform. The profession is on short lease. It has little room to move."
There seem to be three main grizzles architects have at the moment, a) surrendering of aesthetic control to planners, b) time delays of up to 9 months due to new red tape and staffing problems , c) this can't be rationally explained to a client and it can get hard charging them. The main point of the architects would seem to be, "trust us, we know what we're doing, give us some room"
Based on my own recent phonecalls with planners, their response would be, "architects and designers cannot be trusted. They are hired guns and do as their clients want. They do not have the public good in mind."
It is good to see the RAIA slowly awakening to the problems out there. In September it issued a media release summarizing a planning survey that had been sent out to architects at the pit face.
The summary contained a pile of recommendations, but omitted one that would save a lot of naive architects thousands of dollars, namely that the institute should revise its fee scales to delete any reference to planning. On small inner city jobs, planning has become a monster that does not easily fit into the Developed Design stage. In my experience, it can happily devour the full DD fee and chomp halfway into the contract documentation fee also.
RAIA : http://www.architecture.com.au/
a) next year is the international year of the built environment.
b) there is a "Murcutt-Seidler" campaign to fix up the planning system.
I'm not quite sure what the details of this campaign are, other than talking to journos at the Australian, but I'd have to wish it well - where do I sign up. The RAIA are also wishing it well I see.
From the article:
"The closer one looks at [architects'] standing in Australian society the more constrained and encumbered it seems to have become: councils, fixated on simplistic notions of aesthetic harmony, rarely shy of issuing decrees on the period styles - Georgian, Federation, Victorian - and materials to which new domestic work must conform. The profession is on short lease. It has little room to move."
There seem to be three main grizzles architects have at the moment, a) surrendering of aesthetic control to planners, b) time delays of up to 9 months due to new red tape and staffing problems , c) this can't be rationally explained to a client and it can get hard charging them. The main point of the architects would seem to be, "trust us, we know what we're doing, give us some room"
Based on my own recent phonecalls with planners, their response would be, "architects and designers cannot be trusted. They are hired guns and do as their clients want. They do not have the public good in mind."
It is good to see the RAIA slowly awakening to the problems out there. In September it issued a media release summarizing a planning survey that had been sent out to architects at the pit face.
The summary contained a pile of recommendations, but omitted one that would save a lot of naive architects thousands of dollars, namely that the institute should revise its fee scales to delete any reference to planning. On small inner city jobs, planning has become a monster that does not easily fit into the Developed Design stage. In my experience, it can happily devour the full DD fee and chomp halfway into the contract documentation fee also.
RAIA : http://www.architecture.com.au/
Comments
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Well in Adeliade they are putting crappy cylindrical columns and anachronistic styling, i have seen more aesthetically pleasing facades on pit bulls bums. After I finish here I am going to work for the Robot tower designer and work out how they beat the system. Does anyone know? What are the tricks of beating off planners without having to get down on all fours.
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